1115.org

One of these days someone will have to explain to me why, in the spokesmanship business, it is a golden rule that when you’re put in a really uncomfortable position, the only permitted course of action is to churn out patently obvious lies.

After Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s unprecedented last-minute refusal to attend Wednesday night’s meeting and dinner with Bush and King Abdullah II – the diplomatic equivalent of “I slap you in the face, I spit in your eye, and I piss on you afterwards, you son of a syphilitic camel-humping dog” – White House spokesmen twisted themselves into pretzels trying to pretend it was no big deal:

After Maliki abruptly cancelled his appearance at the scheduled meeting, the White House insisted this was not a snub.

“There was going to be a trilateral meeting, and then the dinner with the king. Now, since they already had a bilateral themselves — the king of Jordan and the prime minister — everybody felt, well, there’s no reason for them to do a trilateral meeting beforehand, because matters had been discussed,” said White House counselor Dan Bartlett.

Let me repeat: Maliki’s not-a-snub is not “virtually unprecedented”; it is “unprecedented, period”. The like of it has never happened before to any American president. Or to any world leader with even half the stature of the American president. So nobody’s going to be buying the “no big deal” spin.

And here’s how pathetically inadequate Bartlett’s “explanation” is: the bilateral they already had themselves was not a last-minute change in the schedule, it was planned all along.

Here’s the L.A. Times, weighing in:

Senior Bush aides offered at least four explanations for the cancellation — finally dispatching a more junior official to tell reporters late Wednesday that al-Maliki and Jordan’s King Abdullah II had decided mutually that a three-way conversation was not necessary.

Unfortunately, they didn’t put their money where their mouth is. The piece doesn’t spell out the four different explanations. They did, however, quote Bartlett valiantly claiming the cancelled event was “more of a social meeting anyways.”

But my question remains: why all the lies? No one expects White House spokesmen to embarrass all concerned by spilling the truth in this situation. But what’s wrong with a dignified “no comment”? Why is it preferable to lie? Especially when no one is going to buy the lies anyway.